diff --git a/scripts/read_packages.py b/scripts/read_packages.py
index 21e6e2240ac756a43752fcff9c5ebac0dd1d82f3..4c96da9d62ad51de5c92e8cb8f965709bd6e0c09 100755
--- a/scripts/read_packages.py
+++ b/scripts/read_packages.py
@@ -12,12 +12,13 @@ PACKAGES_KEY = "packages"
 PACKAGE_NAME_KEY = "pkgname"
 PACKAGE_URLS_KEY = "urls"
 
+import codecs
 import json
 import sys
 import os
 
 def packageJsonToSimpleList(filename):
-  file_handle = open(filename, 'r')
+  file_handle = codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf-8-sig')
   pkginfo = json.load(file_handle)
 
   for category_name,category in pkginfo.items():